Time to wake up.

The loss of Proctor and Gamble in Nenagh is a blow to much of North Tipperary. While North Tipperary still is still relatively well off compared to the rest of the country. It is a big blow. And will probably result in Marie Hoctor losing all chance of keeping her seat. But while people will go on about the government and how there policies are the blame. The simple fact of the matter is manufacturing in Ireland has no future.

Yesterday a government report signalled that 500,000 people needed to be up-skilled. Meaning we could no longer survive with simple manufacturing jobs. The parties at the moment seem all to be looking at the short term and talking about the IDA needing to bring in new jobs and talking about competivness. This is a mute point the simple fact of the matter is we will never be competive at manufacturing. There will always be people willing to do it for less.

The only way to deal with this is to move away from manufacturing. Even if the companies are Irish they two will move manufacturing away from Ireland. It is simple common sense if you want to compete on the world market you have to produce at the lowest possible value you can. It is business whether or not they are Irish owned or American owned manufacturing bases will have little future in this country. The soon the powers that be realise this the sooner we can move on.

There is generally two types of manufactured goods. The ones that can be shipped and those that can not be. Some products like Guinness that taste like crap when it travels cannot be shipped (although they try uggh), a house cannot be shipped. Others like a computer can be shipped around the world all it needs is a box. Whether it is made in Limerick or Vietnam a box is a box, a postman is a postman to the end receiver of the product. Anything that can be delivered down a line can also be off shored. Telly marketing is already mainly delivered from India. But also stuff like accounting can also be delivered down a line. Unions battling to stop companies moving are fighting a battle they can’t win. Neither will introducing protectionism into the market stop it. As Mr Universe said in the excellent Serenity. “You can’t stop the signal”. Services delivered over the net or phone can never be stopped.

The future is exporting knowledge and expertise not physical items. Research and development is where the future lies. So what we need to do is innovate to create the initial patented idea’s and products in Ireland so that the financial benefit comes to Ireland. We have to make a 100% Irish silicon valley

Silicon valley has been responsible for much of the economic growth in the USA. So what has silicon valley got that Nashvile hasn’t. Frederick Terman was a professor in Stanford University back in 1930s. He had a light blub over the head moment and decided that the unused land the University had could be used to help students set up businesses, he also looked for venture capital for them. One of the first students he helped were called Hewlett and Packard. In the 1950’s the Stanford Industrial Park was created. This basically was cheap rental space for technological companies. This attracted many bright individuals that attracted more and new companies spawned more new companies and eventually Silicon came what it is today. The cradle of all innovation in the world.

So what is the moral of the silicon valley tale. Basically it is that to create a successful economy it requires innovation. We in this country can not depend on foreign companies forever they will move. To succeed in the future we have to produce our own companies. If we take the lesson from Silicon valley our mission is clear. We need to create a climate where innovation and ideas can flourish. This requires 2 steps.

The first step is the vast increase of funding in the Universities especially in 4^th level. While the government is moving on this it is still very poor. Funding for a PhD in this country is about 12,700-14,000 per annum at best. This has remained fairly static for some years while the cost of living has not. Is there many people willing to live in Dublin on 12,700 a year. If you wish to keep the best and the brightest in the country and in research you have to provided them with a decent living wage. Feel free to say fecking student getting stuff for nothing. But if even one of those student can come out and create a company like Google then the benefit to the economy far out ways the initial cost.

Secondly once the researchers have the idea’s give them the financial means to implement these ideas. This means that Enterprise Ireland needs to be given more money to give them the ability to provide companies with the seed capital they need to blossom. I had the idea of encouraging investment in indigenous industry by re-introducing the bank levy and letting it be written off against investment in start-ups.

In the 2005 Budget the government announced that €1.2 billion over 5 years was going to be spent on 4^th Level education. This is a start but only a start. We are talking about the future of the nation here. The education system needs vast amounts investment. We have a limited population so we need to maximise the talent in the country. This requires investments in all levels of education. The person who will have the vision and the drive to create the Irish version of Google can come from anywhere be it D4 or the Ballymun flats. Thus children from both area’s need to be given the same chance in life. In places where parents don’t place enough emphasis on education then the state has to step in and invest in homework clubs. Force the children to do there homework if needs be from an early age. Schools need to be of a great standard no matter where they are. If someone wants to go to a private school so be it but they should not get an educational advantage for it. Not by bringing the private school standard down but by bring the public school standard up.

We can no longer rely on foreign companies in Ireland. We can no longer rely on traditional manufacturing. We have to invest in innovation and rely on jobs in innovation not manufacturing. Now.